Lenovo H50 (90BG0002US) Review

By Tech For Pennies

December 1, 2014

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A set of new entry level desktops has been lately released to the market by the world-class manufacturer Lenovo. Those computers are suitable for common home and office use, and might have enough performance to support some gaming sessions, too. In this review, we’ll take a look at the Lenovo H50 (90BG0002US) model, featuring AMD A10 series processor and 8 gigabytes memory.

The main things

The main difference between these Lenovos is the processor. This model comes with AMD A10-7800, a quad core CPU clocked at 3.5GHz with turbo speed up to 3.9GHz. The performance tests place it closer to Intel Core i5 models, so using it for heavier stuff works – especially multitasking, for which the four cores should come handy. It can still be considered a budget-friendly processor, and the AMD A10-7800 actually offers better value (price-performance ratio) than most modern Intel processors.

The desktop comes with 8GB DDR3 memory installed, a very respectable amount these days. The RAM should be expandable up to 16GB with two memory slots in total. However, information whether one slot is free on the mainboard wasn’t available.

Desktops’ storage solutions tend to come with size first, speed second mentality. This Lenovo has a 1024GB 7200RPM hard drive responsible for the storage. It’s huge, good for hosting hundreds of movies, but not the speediest one in the bunch compared to solid-state drives. But then again, for a casual user this configuration is adequate.

The AMD A10-7800 APU has also a graphics engine installed within. It’s called AMD Radeon R7, which is rather capable entry-level graphics chip. You could easily play heavier games like Battlefield 4 at least on low settings with FPS constantly over 25. If you prefer older or less demanding games such as Tomb Raider, you can probably up the settings at least to medium and retain playable frame rates.

There’s Windows 8.1 (64-bit) pre-installed on the system. For those who want older Windows, I suggest another desktop or overwriting the current OS with Windows 7 (which will, by the way, be supported for many years). Naturally, just getting used to Windows 8 is also a good option.

Check out what other people are saying about this desktop on Amazon.com.

Connections

Lenovo H50 (90BG0002US) comes with a basic desktop connectivity. You’ll find in total 6 USB ports, of which two are USB 3.0. Two USB 2.0s are available in the front panel.

For video output, there’s at least a HDMI port, but product image suggests also a VGA output is installed in the back panel. Either way, connecting this desktop to a HDTV would work.

Just sometimes budget desktops rely only on wired networking. Luckily, that’s not the case here. In addition to the Gigabit Ethernet port the desktop sports 802.11b/g/n WiFi adapter. To my knowledge, Bluetooth isn’t supported out of the box.

For additional storage and data transfer, you can use the 8x DVD burner and memory card reader (MS, MS Pro, SD, SDHC, SDXC, MMC, MMC Plus), both found in the front panel.

What else do I need to know?

The dimensions of 14″ height, 6.3″ width and 16.1″ depth allow for some expansions. There’s a free PCI-E x16 slot, which you can use to install a faster graphics card and make this rig better for gaming. The power supply has to be taken into consideration as well but its wattage wasn’t officially available. In some other Lenovo H50 models the PSU is 180W, so probably the same can be assumed for this particular model as well.

The desktop doesn’t include a monitor – something you have to get separately – but basic USB keyboard and mouse are shipped along.

Conclusions

Lenovo H50 (90BG0002US) is a beefier version of the other Lenovo H50 already reviewed on this site. Compared to its little brother, this version has far better processor and double the RAM. Another difference is the connectivity – this faster version has an HDMI output while the other one relies exclusively on VGA. All in all, if you want better gaming support (thanks to the capable GPU), going for this model is probably a good idea. For everyday computer, the cheaper Lenovo works just fine.